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Fernando Alonso says Aston Martinâs heavily upgraded AMR26 has given the team âa good baseline to work withâ. Alonso said: "I think it was good to feel again the competitiveness and I think especially at the beginning, I think we had the pace to follow more or less the midfields. That was good, and hopefully a good baseline to work with this new car."
Max Verstappen said he was âshockedâ to finish second at the Hungarian Grand Prix after struggling with the handling of his Red Bull throughout the weekend, having told his engineer in qualifying that the car was âcompletely brokenâ. Max Verstappen said: "I was just like, 'How the hell did I end up here?' I was shocked. I'm actually still shocked... Overall, I still don't really understand how we are second, but I think as a team we performed strongly. I see it as a bit of an overperformance compared to what we expected, so I guess that's, of course, a good thing considering how everything felt."
Lando Norris said he was "better in every sense" than McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri during their fight for the lead in the Hungarian Grand Prix, which Norris won. Norris said: "Of course, it wasn't my finest Turn 2, but after that, seeing what my pace was like and I was just better in every sense, in terms of degradation and pace. I was convinced I could still win the race, even after that, whether I would box or force him to box and I would go long, get fresh tyres and come back through."
Carlos Sainz says Oscar Piastri âcould have been a bit more carefulâ when trying to lap him during their Hungarian Grand Prix clash, with the Williams driver pointing to issues with blue flags. Sainz said: "To be honest, I'm really sorry for Oscar, but this time I think I have a pretty good excuse for what happened. I don't know if he could also have been a bit more careful, given that he's the one fighting for podiums and positioning himself a bit more cautiously because of all the issues we were all having with the blue flags. I took the five-second penalty; I'm okay with it."
Lando Norris says McLaren were on âanother levelâ and that, in the form he was in, there was âno stoppingâ him as he won the Hungarian Grand Prix. Norris said: "We were just on another level today, and I felt in a very good flow of things. When the car's good and when I'm in a good flow, there's no stopping [me]."
Max Verstappen hit out at Racing Bulls drivers Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad as âmoronsâ on team radio during the Hungarian Grand Prix after they continued battling as he approached to lap them. âOh, they should get a penalty⌠these morons,â Verstappen said. It later emerged a system failure meant race control reverted to marshalling for blue flags after light panels malfunctioned, with several drivers reporting the flags were not showing on their steering wheel displays.
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said the team ânever managedâ to give Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar a car they could properly push at the Hungarian Grand Prix, despite Verstappen finishing second. Mekies said: "I think we never managed to give Max and Isack [Hadjar] a car they could push with. If I look back at the drivers' feedback in Spa or Austria, they would probably have said that the car was pretty much in the ballpark, as to how it should feel and what it allows them to do. That was never the case this weekend."
Max Verstappen says his late-braking lunge on Lewis Hamilton into Turn 1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix was his âonly opportunityâ to make the pass. Verstappen said: "I knew that that was my only opportunity as well, because they were not too bad in terms of pace. So, when I saw the opportunity arise, I went for it and, yeah, it was a good move."
Toto Wolff says it is âtoo earlyâ to call Kimi Antonelli the Formula 1 title favourite, despite the Mercedes driver extending his championship lead to 50 points at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Wolff said: "It's too early to say. I'm superstitious, even though the gap is 50 points, there's so many races to go, a DNF for two can just swing massively. We've not been great on reliability, so we just have to continue to maximise every single day from the Friday onwards to the Sunday and then hopefully at the end that will be enough."
Toto Wolff says Mercedes is not sure whether George Russellâs damaged engine from the Hungarian Grand Prix can be repaired, as the team tries to avoid a grid penalty later in the season after moving Russell on to his fourth power unit of 2026. Wolff said: "Not sure. We need to check whether we can repair it. It has quite a crack. In terms of engine penalties, I still very much hope we don't need to take it."
Mercedes has confirmed Gwen Lagrue will leave the team, ahead of an expected move to Red Bull in a similar junior driver programme role. Motorsport.com reported over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend that Lagrue was set to join Red Bull, and Mercedes has now announced his departure on social media. Lagrueâs switch is expected to help fill the vacancy left by Helmut Markoâs retirement at the end of last year. Mercedes wrote: âThank you Gwen. It's been a great ride together.â
Lando Norris says âall the pressureâ is on Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli as he did not rule out mounting a title fightback after winning the Hungarian Grand Prix. Norris said: "The pressure is on him [Antonelli] for sure. There's no pressure on me. I've been feeling very confident. They [Mercedes] have made more mistakes as a team and we have made less and we have come strong but I expect them to still win races and expect us to win more races. We just need to be perfect from here on now for the whole year."
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur said âeverything went wrongâ for the team at the Hungarian Grand Prix, after Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and fifth despite Ferrari being expected to have strong pace at the Hungaroring. Vasseur said: "It's not a good Sunday because when you are P1-P2 on Friday you expect much more than P4-P5. And at the top you make too many mistakes today starting with a start, with a penalty, with the fact that Max overtook us on track, at each time that we are doing a pit stop, we are losing our position for 0.2 or 0.3 seconds. Everything went wrong, but for sure we have to do a much better job in some way."
Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies said Max Verstappenâs second place at the Hungarian Grand Prix was helped by âspicyâ strategy calls from the pit wall, including choosing track position rather than pitting under a late Virtual Safety Car. Mekies said: "In terms of the VSC, there have been a number of quite spicy strategy calls made by the guys today, including the one of the VSC, but not only, if you look at the earlier move not to cover Lewis [Hamilton] when he pitted early on, and as always, they always get it right. Very well done to the pit wall and to the whole team back home, tyre group, strategy group, and I think as a whole, race execution has been very, very strong here."
Nico Hulkenberg admits scoring points for Audi this season has been âa long time comingâ after finishing ninth at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Hulkenberg said: "Obviously better to have points than not. It's been a long time coming this season. There were many occasions and opportunities this year where it should've happened but it didn't for various reasons, so that was annoying but that's racing sometimes for you. I and the team knew it's there â it was just a matter of time and putting it together. Finally, the piece fell into place."
Lewis Hamilton says he must stop giving FIA stewards âany reasonâ to penalise him after picking up his fourth sanction in three Formula 1 weekends at the Hungarian Grand Prix, including a five-second penalty for pitlane speeding that dropped him from fourth on the road to fifth behind Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc. Hamilton said: "Ultimately, I think the last three races have been pretty bad from my side. I've got to try and make sure I don't give them any reason to give me any penalties moving forwards."
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